Transcript

I first came to Canberra in 1934 and was appointed to Prime Minister's Department as a stenographer. The Department seemed as though it supplied personnel to the ministers at Parliament House when required.

I think it'd be a good idea to understand the remoteness of Canberra in those days, when there were no aeroplanes, and any politician who lived further away than Melbourne or Sydney couldn't go home until the end of the session. There were no two weeks on and a week off or anything like that in those days. Also, Canberra was fairly sparsely populated and everyone here more or less had to make their own recreation facilities or anything like that, and during the session you quite often played tennis or ... with some of the parliamentary people. I think that possibly the members were more friendly to each other in those days because they were thrown together at the weekend and naturally would find similar interests, whereas now they just come for the few days of parliament and go back to their electorates and homes and so forth now.

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